Now, there's nothing official about this day, certainly no proclamation from the White House, or Governor's mansion, for that matter, has been issued in support of the event. 

It was inspired by Clint Eastwood's speech at the Republican National Convention, in which he claimed that he brought Obama along, as he pointed to an empty chair. You can watch an abbreviated version of his speech here:

If you want to watch the entire thing in context, here's a link to the full version of the Clint Eastwood speech - 11+ minutes.

Apparently, the idea was started by a conservative blog, Legal Insurrection, which asked for photos and got so many, they had to close the submissions. 

So, this inspired thousands across the country to put out an empty chair on Labor Day, as reported in the Examiner. "Labor Day has been cancelled due to a lack of jobs. Monday is now Empty Chair Day." The Examiner even posted a slideshow of images that were sent in by readers. 

We put out a call for anyone who was participating, and received one response here in the quad-city area. With a little more time, we probably would have had more. Of course, we saw lots of chairs on porches, but since we're not sure whether they were there to celebrate Empty Chair Day, or just there, we'll leave it at that.

If you have any photos of your empty chair, send them to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .